


Take Your Heart, But You Won't Feel It

by Harpokrates



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien anatomy, Contrived excuse to get two characters naked under a crinkly foil blanket, Hypothermia, M/M, this is so cliched I'm embarrassed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24035920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harpokrates/pseuds/Harpokrates
Summary: After their shuttle is shot down, Commander Wolffe and General Plo Koon must survive the elements, and each other's company.
Relationships: Plo Koon/CC-3636 | Wolffe
Comments: 18
Kudos: 165





	Take Your Heart, But You Won't Feel It

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i take from you everything you will allow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13776939) by [chameleonchanging](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chameleonchanging/pseuds/chameleonchanging). 



Wolffe came back to life with a gasp, and rolled to his side to hack up his lungs. He retched up about a liter of water instead.

"What?" He managed, gasping and shivering. He blinked his eyes clear and managed to bring the prosthetic one into focus. His remaining eye was blurry and hazy, but that didn't entirely account for the fact that everything he saw was white. Wolffe watched a snowflake drift lazily down from the sky and land on the side of his nose.

"Commander?" A familiar voice. It sounded tinny. "Wolffe?"

"Yes?" He blinked. "General Plo." He struggled to sit up, but only managed to get about half way before his lungs protested. He fought down his body wracking shiver. "What happened?"

"An ambush, I believe." He pressed a clawed hand to Wolffe's chest. "The landing was messy."

"No kidding." He gasped, shivering. "We crash?"

General Plo hummed in agreement. "Through the ice."

The water, the goosepricks threatening to pox him. "You saved me?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't save Freight or Spike." General Plo said mournfully. "The cockpit detached from the rest of the ship."

"We're gonna freeze out here." Wolffe chose to ignore his contrition. He got his arms under him and forced himself to stand. General Plo helped him the remaining distance to upright.

The General was frigid, and Wolffe was probably a little worse.

"We need to find shelter." He mumbled the words out of numb lips. He'd be fine if he were in his climate controlled armor, but if he were in his armor, he'd probably be at the bottom of the water with Freight, Spike, and the ship. Greys were fine.

General Plo nodded. Frost was forming on the tubes leading from his mask to his Lavrren organs curling around the side of his head. He could handle extreme temperatures better than a human could, but neither of them were Wampas. It'd be real funny if they survived a shuttle crash, only to succumb to the crummy weather.

"There was a settlement to the south." Wolffe turned to face it, arms clenched over his elbows. "We passed over it about half an hour ago."

"Fifty kilometers, at least."

"It's not getting any closer by standing here." Wolffe took a step, and sank up to his knees in the snow. He cussed under his breath, kicking his way through the snow, until General Plo stepped in front of him and trenched out a path.

"You should stay behind me, sir." Wolffe said. "You don't want that ambush taking you out next."

"This is fine, Commander." General Plo said lightly. "I imagine if anyone is aiming for me, you standing in front of me won't make much of a difference."

Wolffe's head came up to his shoulder on a good day. Hunched into himself with cold like he was, he probably only made the General's collarbones.

"It would still help."

"It will also help if I don't lose you in the snow." He reached a hand back. "Here."

Wolffe looked at his back, then his extended hand. He reached out and held on, ignoring the icy burn of the metal cap General Plo wore over his middle finger, and his own stiff, unyielding fingers.

"My greys are freezing on my back." He said quietly.

General Plo didn't respond, but Wolffe could see by the strange shuffle he'd adopted that he'd been just as drenched in the icy water.

"Maybe we could dig a hole in the snow." Wolffe reflected back to the survival module he'd taken as a cadet. "I still have my belt. Should have a foil blanket."

"A cave." General Plo croaked, one long finger unfolding and pointing out the small hollow in the endless snow.

"Better idea." Wolffe shuddered. He took a step after General Plo, and ended up on his knees.

"Stand up, Wolffe."

"Right. Right. Yessir." His muscles didn't respond for all their shaking. "Give me a second, sir."

"A second is too long." General Plo reached down and grabbed Wolffe under the armpit, hauling him upright and pulling his arm over his own shoulder.

"Thank you." Wolffe clenched his teeth to speak. "Think we'll have any toes left after this?"

"I have fewer than you to lose." General Plo huffed, shuddering through his mask. He near dragged Wolffe into the small cave. They both had to duck to crawl inside, but the wind was less severe.

"And here I was hoping it'd be warm in here." Wolffe gasped. His mouth was cracked, and he grimaced and wiped away the blood threading up from his lips on his sleeve.

"Here." General Plo struggled out of his frozen cloak. "Block the entrance."

Wolffe crammed it over the mouth of the cave, and blocked the drafts with snow. He reconsidered, and poked a few small holes through the snow with his pinky.

"So we don't suffocate." He said when he caught the General watching him.

"I forget you humans need so much oxygen."

"Sorry for my physiology." Wolffe pulled the foil blanket, and a micro heat generator off of his belt. "This won't throw much heat."

He activated it, pulled his belt off, and began unbuttoning his tunic. He felt the heat of a gaze on his back, and luxerated in the imagined warmth for a moment.

"Sir?" He twisted half around, stiff fingers struggling to work open his last button.

"Nothing." General Plo began the laborious act of removing his many layers of clothing. Wolffe had his fly popped and his tunic and undershirt laid out in front of the generator by the time the General got around to removing his obi.

He grimaced at the sight of his waxy, pimpled skin. It looked like frostburn, if not frostbite. His fingers were still numb, but painful heat coursed through his hands. He pulled his boots off, not wanting to see the state his toes were in, and struggled down out of his pants. They were frozen solid, and the zipper stuck, so he had to force them down over his thighs.

If he wasn't so focused on not dying from the cold, and if the deaths of his brothers, no matter how much he didn't care about the new 104th, weren't weighting so heavily in his head, this sort of tandem desperate undressing might've been like something out of one of his more pathetic fantasies.

Wolffe dismissed it. Compartmentalized.

He spread out his socks and underwear and shook open the foil blanket.

"Sir." He turned to General Plo. "Are you—"

General Plo was down one layer. Wolffe exhaled.

"Sir, you need to get undressed. This thing doesn't work with clothes, and it especially doesn't work with wet and frozen clothes."

"I don't want to embarrass you." Second layer, this one his outer tunic.

"You ever seen the barracks? I don't embarrass easily." Being crammed nut to butt in a shower line with fifty thousand other men from the age of three on up very quickly destroyed any sense of squeamishness about nudity.

"Hm."

Wolffe shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his arms as General Plo handed him clothes to lay out. He loosened the laces on the back of his neck, and pulled off his undertunic. Wolffe's eyebrows hit his hairline.

"Are you hurt, sir?" Wolffe stared at the deformities nestled in the hollows of General Plo's ribs. They looked like massive blisters, fluid filled and taut.

"They're normal." General Plo said, unlacing his trousers. 

"Oh. Sorry."

"Helium sacs. The atmosphere on Dorin has more helium than we need. The excess is diverted and stored. My quarters on the venerator are an equal parts helium nitrogen blend. Dorin gas is too difficult to obtain."

"So that's why you're spaceworthy." Wolffe took his trousers, then spread out the foil, wrapping around both of them and tucking it under him. The reflected heat acted quickly, but it only felt warm in comparison to the ambient air. It was probably still below freezing inside the foil. 

General Plo shifted, and his shoulder knocked against Wolffe's. He flexed his fingers.

No nipples, but Kel Dor weren't mammals like humans were. It was odd to glance at the expense of a pectoral and not see any dot of brown. And he was hairless, but that was less odd. Some of his brothers didn't have chest hair, either by choice or by the same generic quirks that turned them blond or bald. 

"I can hear you thinking."

"Sorry, sir." Wolffe grimaced. "How literal was that?"

"Not very. I simply mean that I can tell you are concentrating. The crash?"

Not at all, but it was a good excuse.

"Wondering who set the ambush. If it's the Kijimi, then I'm guessing the Seppies got to them before us. If it's not…" he shrugged, jostling General Plo's arm. "Maybe rebels? Neutral dissidents like Mandalore?"

"Perhaps. It was a missile. I didn't manage to note any markings."

"Not exactly a priority when you're falling out of the sky."

Plo Koon laughed and silence settled in with the chill. Wolffe reached out of the cocoon and grabbed the generator, tucking in between his and General Plo's thighs.

"Can't keep that there too long. It'll burn." He looked down. "Thank you, sir, for saving me."

"You don't need to thank me for that."

"I really do." He shrugged again. "There are people who wouldn't. Not for a clone. There are Jedi who wouldn't either."

"I know." Plo Koon said darkly.

Wolffe cleared his throat. "Do you have a belly button?"

"What?"

"A belly button. Navel. Normal humans have them, middle of the stomach." Wolffe poked where it would have been on him, if he were natborn.

"No." General Plo replied. "Kel Dor aren't liveborn. We hatch, and are incubated externally."

Wolffe snorted a laugh. He was getting feeling back in his nose, and it was agonizing. Pain was good, though; it meant the tissue wasn't dead. "Me too."

Wolffe dropped his head against his chest. It was warmer, curled up like this. It also let him look at General Plo's hands. 

Broad, strong and tapered. Four fingers. They were warm, which Wolffe knew from personal experience now. They were thick with callouses, but they didn't sit in the same places as Wolffe's. It was the difference between a lightsaber and a blaster, he supposed.

"Don't fall asleep." General Plo touched his shoulder.

"I'm not gonna fall asleep." Wolffe grunted. "Do humans look weird to you?"

"Very." He chuckled, then coughed. "I'm still not exactly sure how you walk."

He made a gesture that might've been crude if it wasn't so endearing in it's awkwardness.

"It's not…" Wolffe searched for the words. "Obtrusive. Normally. Underwear keeps everything in place. And then the armor."

"I'd noticed the armor." He said it so flatly that Wolffe couldn't help but snort. At General Plo's resultant chuckle, he dissolved into belly laughs, pressing his forehead against his hairy knee in an attempt to pull himself together.

"So," Wolffe cleared his throat, and bit back the last few giggles riding on the giddy high of Plo Koon's deep rumble, " how does your armor—" he cut himself off. "Sorry, sir. Ignore that."

"Everything is," General Plo waved a hand, "internal, for the most part. I confess that I'm not the best person to ask about the specifics of Kel Dor reproduction. It's not something I've… made a personal study of."

Delicate way to phrase it.

"What's the little metal claw for?" Wolffe asked, mostly to break the tension, but partly because he was sure he'd have scars sharing the design when his hand finally healed up. He liked the idea, but thinking about in closer terms than that was slightly nauseating. He stuck his feelings in a little box, and that was where they would stay.

Plo Koon brightened. The frost on his mask had receded slightly. Wolffe shifted to the side and removed the generator before they both got chemical burns. The chill rushed back in, but it wasn't as bad when he was pressed close up to another person.

"A gift from my family." He pulled his hand out from the recesses of the foil. "A Baran Do charm. I am an honorary sage," he said as an aside. "The old masters channeled lightning, changed the course of storms. The metal cap protected them. Nowadays, of course, there are sophisticated radar systems to predict the weather, and the Baran Do occupy a ceremonial position. I suppose I am one of the few Kel Dor still using it for its intended purpose."

"Commander Sha can't use lighting."

"Little Sha is too gentle, despite what she tries to tell you." Plo Koon's voice was warm with affection. For one bitter, cramping second, Wolffe hated Sha, that she was the object of that all-consuming warmth, General Plo's love for the universe and every small thing in it.

It was an ugly, selfish thing, but Wolffe wanted to want it all for himself. He didn't let himself feel that way, but the temptation lingered the way the fond expression on Plo Koon's face did.

"Her mother gave me this. My sister, I suppose, but she is more like a passing acquaintance."

"Do you want a nutrient bar?" Wolffe asked sullenly. "Nevermind."

"I cannot consume solids, but thank you." He redirected the force of his feelings at Wolffe, who could only close his eyes in the face of it. "I appreciate that you think of me. I enjoy it."

"Can't let you go and starve."

"Or freeze. Or be shot. I would question your self sacrificial streak if I didn't think you'd be angry with me for bringing it up."

"It's what I'm for." Wolffe said.

General Plo closed his eyes behind his goggles. "It pains me that you think that way about yourself."

Wolffe shrugged. "The Jedi commissioned us. It's not that complicated."

General Plo shifted like he wanted to speak, but stopped himself. Probably something too kind, too moralistic. One of those funny Jedi ideals about inherent worth that could never survive outside the thick shell of the temple. Instead he shivered, and pressed himself further in the blanket.

"Once our clothing dries," Wolffe said, for lack of anything else to say, "we should be able to make the march to the settlement."

"Provided they aren't allied with our attackers."

"Provided." Wolffe nodded dully. He shook his head slightly in a bid to dust out the cobwebs. He exhaled slowly, and shuffled to reach an arm around Plo Koon.

"Keeps the heat in better." 

General Plo didn't say anything, just returned the gesture and wrapped his long arm around Wolffe's shoulder. His bicep was pressed against Wolffe's back, and those odd sacs squished up against his side. They had a little give, and were slightly warmer than the rest of the General. Wolffe fought his initial uge to curl in around them. It was probably fine in the cave, but they wouldn't be in the cave for the rest of their lives, and Outside Wolffe didn't want to have the inevitable awkward conversation with Outside General Plo.

"Think those little blisters make you bouyant?" Wolffe scrunched his toes. Still no feeling, but he could move them. 

Plo Koon snorted. "Not enough to counteract my robe, or my weight. Kel Dor are denser. Less," he tapped his wrist, searching for the word, "bone marrow."

"I guess you have to be if you're filled with helium." Wolffe chuckled. "Don't want you floating off like a balloon."

"I'm sure the fighter fuel budget would be happier." 

Wolffe exhaled, and slowly let his head tip to the side. His hair scrunched against Plo Koon's shoulder. It was getting long and curly in the back; he'd have to cut it soon unless he wanted to smear enough product to drown a tooka in it to keep it flat. 

Plo Koon didn't call him on it. Maybe he thought Wolffe was asleep, maybe he didn't care. Maybe he enjoyed this twisted little dance as much as Wolffe did: denial, flirtation, and camaraderie.

Wolffe scoffed at himself. Jedi didn't feel that way, and if they did, they ignored it.

He put the generator back in between their thighs.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Phil Collins' Easy Lover. You have no idea how tempting it was to use the line "before you know it you'll be on your knees", but I'm saving that for if I ever work up the nerve to write smut (I never will).
> 
> There's a throwaway line at the end of a prompt chameleonchanging posted on Tumblr, wherein Kit Fisto asked Plo if he and Wolffe had ever seen each other naked. Anyways, now you all have to read this rambling nonsense. 
> 
> I actually have an embarrassingly detailed headcanon for how Kel Dor anatomy works (the liquid diet is due to an egg sac located in the upper abdomen, which reduces the length of the intestines), largely because I want to write an AU about Dorin. Maybe later.
> 
> The helium sacs look a little like orange enhydro agates, but with skin instead of rock.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and please leave a comment if you liked it!


End file.
